“Where an artist must be the architect of his own mythology, time is against him. He cannot live long enough to impose his special vision and the symbols he has devised for it on the habits of language and feeling in his society.”George Steiner

“For the artist communication with nature remains the most essential condition. The artist is human; himself nature; part of nature; within natural space.” Paul Klee

“Poetry is superior to painting in the presentation of words and painting is superior to poetry in the presentation of facts. For this reason I judge painting to be superior to poetry.”Leonardo

“The artist does not draw what he sees but what he must make others see. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” Degas

“Painting searches for new forms and very few people know that it is the unconscious search for new content.”Kandinsky

“I have always said, or at least thought, that literary poetry in a painter is something special and is neither illustration nor translation of writing by form. In painting one must search rather for suggestion than description, as is done in music.”Gauguin

“The theory of perspective developed in the 15th century is a scientific convention. It is merely one way of describing space and has no absolute validity.”Herbert Read

“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of painting people have to understand, if only they would realise above all that the artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can’t explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually looking up the wrong tree.”Picasso

“The greatest skill of the brush can only hurt a work of the imagination because it emphasizes the material.”Gauguin

1970s

Following my arrival in New Zealand, Tricia, (my new wife) and I set up home in Christchurch. This was a rented house where studio space was generally confined to a small spare bedroom. We were very happy and optimistic as the paintings continued to flow. However, the art scene, such as it was then, was somewhat conservative and it was not easy to get my work accepted for any gallery exposure.

Hard times ensued and I know that I was generally frowned upon as some kind of ‘freeloading Pom’ who couldn’t get a ‘proper job’. I must confess that such times were not without deep anxiety for us both. In fact, because of our ongoing poverty I was forced to take an office job for a while.

1970s Keith

However, as better contacts were made and my knowledge of art and antiques became useful to others, things became easier. I rented a small shop in the city with my studio at the rear and antiques for sale in the front. I was not a good businessman and the antiques side of the set-up never really prospered. Rather than be known as a successful trader, I seemed to be much more in demand for my knowledge to other antique dealers and auctioneers.

1970s Tricia

As a painter, I was classically trained and therefore able to relieve our poverty by doing a few pot-boilers to supplement our income. So - I confess - from the back of my shop I churned out representational works that were eagerly snatched up for ‘real money’.

Because my name is more recognised now these paintings sometimes turn up for authentication and valuation and I do admit to being just a little embarrassed.

However, I see this website as a vehicle of truthful record and, although this was a difficult period, I feel it was also a vital one in resolving issues at the time.

So - for the record - here is a sample of those life-saving works:

Evening Rain

Of course, many such paintings were never photographed and even these shots come from old scanned polaroids.

Home Through The Snow

Old Angela

I placed some in a restaurant and they sold the same day - before the paint was dry.

After Rain

Still Life

Noon Shadows

Hey Ho - The Wind And The Rain!

Dutch Winter Scene

While such paintings were, in effect, a lifesaver, and a means to an end - through them I glimpsed the acute danger of my being regarded as merely another commercial artist. Any progress that I have made in my work is partly due to the fear of this danger.

I may have learned well from the past - but I work for the future.

As a strong part of my developing psyche and personal projection there has always been a particular shape or form. This is a simple biomorphic expression that was innate and appeared naturally in many drawings, paintings and even sculpture. It was later to be tagged by the media as the ‘Morantic’. In some paintings of this period I doffed my hat to surrealism and placed them in naturalistic settings.

Morantic Breeze

Morantic Flowers

Morantic Picnic

Morantic Idyll

Exhibiting in 1978

Dawn Watch

Morance

At this time, as well as painting on many levels, I was working with sculptural concepts.

Morantic Form IV

Morantic Form V

A nice big drawing

It was about this time that the McDougall Gallery (the Municiple gallery of Christchurch) acquired one of my paintings. It is titled: